Ruby Tuesday

Ruby Tuesday, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

Different upload of Ruby Falls in Mt. Rainier. Obviously this shot was taken Vertically instead of Horizontally like the previous.
This falls is a beautiful falls to shoot and see. I am glad I made the trip up in the rain to pretty much shoot this one falls before I left for home.

Next Door Neighbor

Next Door Neighbor, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

This shot was taken flying from Orange County, Ca to Sea/Tac, WA. on the first day of the trip to the Pacific Northwest. This took about a gazillion, yes I said a gazillion layers to create a decent photo. Multiple Curves, Levels, Nik Color Efex pro 3.0, for contrast and color. Some small amounts of Noise Ninja for the sky and High pass sharpening.
You may ask yourself "IF it took that many layers why bother?" Well I am sure we have all been there when you like a photo and you don't want to give upee, 33w on it and I really had nothing better to do while I have been sitting and watching the World Series. So this could be titled "what the heck I got nothin better to do". But I thought that was to long of a title.

The Path to Grace

The Path to Grace, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

I shot this while driving from Portland to Cannon Beach. Just tooling down the road and I saw this church along the side of the road, decided to pull over and snap a few before getting back on my way.
The HDR really brought out the sky and Silver Efex Pro 2.0 took care of the rest in Black and white. I really like the presets and then some other slight adjustments once you find a good preset and you can really bring out some definition in the right places.

South Coast Sunset

South Coast Sunset, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

I saw this shot the day before taking my daughter to a church event. As I drove down the freeway the blue of the sky and the sunset reflection in the buildings along with the full moon made for a great scene. So there I am driving down the freeway looking at freeway over passes wondering where there would be a good shot. How many of you know the deal...driving, looking, driving slower, looking more? This was the only overpass to get the shot and even this over pass had fencing so you had to go off to the side to get the shot.
Knowing that this shot wouldn't be here next week, next month or next year. The next day I went out at sunset and set my shot.
I did mix 2 shots, 1 for the overall scene and the other with a 70-200L lens to get the moon. Otherwise the moon comes out smaller and blown out. I did all of my photoshop work and then masked in the moon where the blown out moon was at. I did scale the moon down to size.
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!!

The Shot:

Freeway:

Single Exposure-F/11, ISO 200,  5 seconds, -1EV,  Tripod Mounted with cable release, 1ds Mark II, 24-105L @100mm

Moon:

Single Exposure-F/5.6, ISO 320, 1/500, Tripod Mounted with cable Release, 1ds Mark II, 70-200L with 2X extender @ 400mm

Post Processing:

>Raw- Recovery Slider, Exposure, Blacks, Remove sharpen, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff

CS-5:

>Mode-Lab Color

>Duplicate Layer

>Curves-Adjust for Lightness, A & B Channels

>Reduced opacity until desired results

>Flattened Images

>Mode-RGB

>Topaz Adjust-Increase Color and brightness

>Topaz InFocus-Increase sharpness

>Noise Ninja-Masked for sky

>Nik Color Efex Pro

  >Pro Contrast-decrease opacity until desired result

>Adjustment Layer Levels-Masked for sky only-increased and darkened blues

>Adjustment Layer Levels-Masked for mountains-darkened 

>Cloned out old blown out moon (Blown out from long exposure)

>Masked in corrected exposure moon

>Transform tool on moon-decrease moon in size until desired result

>Move tool-Moved moon to desired position

>Cropped photo for better composition

>High pass sharpening

>Framed and Sized for posting

Real Reflection

Real Reflection, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

This should be my last Trillium Lake and Mt. Hood post.
This comes from the first night of the trip. I landed at Sea/Tac airport, got my rental vehicle and headed straight for this spot. Here is the way the story goes:

About a 1 1/2 years ago I was in the Portland, Or. area. It wasn't that great of day with rain and clouds but I was determined to head up to Trillium Lake and catch the shot I have seen so many photo's of.
So away I went and after fighting traffic and driving that 60 miles and 1-1/2 hours I got to the turn off for Trillium Lake. The GPS said 2 miles. The road closure sigh said "sorry about your luck". You see I didn't check road closures and the main hwy was open right up until the time you enter the park. The gate closure and 4ft of snow said I wasn't going to make it. The date was April 28th and they don't plow the roads and open the park until May 1st. So all that driving for nothing, I was rather disappointed.
Zoom forward to this day. I knew that the next few days it was going to rain and the weather report for this day said "Sun and great weather" so this shot was going to be my one and only attempt for this area for this trip.
So 220 miles and 4 hours later here I was ready to shoot. So worth the drive, so worth the view!! I would do it all over again tomorrow for the same shot and same experience of beauty!!

The Shot:

>Standard 3 Shot HDR  +2, 0, -2,    ISO 320, F/9, 24-105L @32mm, Tripod and cable shutter release.

Post Processing:

>ACR

>Removed All Sharpening, Removed Black,  Added Noise Reduction, Removed Chromatic Abberration

>Saved as Tiffs

Photomatix:

>Detail Enhancer

>Strength 90%

>Color Saturation 80%

>Smoothing (Slider @7.9)

>Luminosity 0.00

>White Point 1.055

>Black Point 0.515

>Microsmoothing 17.2

>Microcontrast 4.0

>Saved as 16 Bit Tiff

Post Processing CS-5

>Mountain came out very Orange in HDR Processing

  >Masked in -2 EV for Mountain and Reflection

>Topaz InFocus-Global Sharpening

>Color efex Pro 3.0

   >Pro Contrast-Lower Opacity to Taste

   >Tonal Contrast-Masked for Water only-Lowered opacity to taste

>Adjustment Layer-Levels-Lowered Blue saturation in Sky>Cloning to remove dust and spots

>Adjustment Layer-Curves-Slight global contrast

>Cropped, Framed and Sized for posting

Color Coded

Color Coded, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

Well here is my shot of Bandon Beach. I got here late, sun had set and it was raining. So after a few long exposures and getting soaked I decided to give it up and pack up what I had and hoped for the best.
The original shot is very flat in color (Blue) so I did increase exposure and pulled up the Color Efex Pro 3.0 and whipped out the Bi-Color filter and added my own color to my taste. I feel I salvaged what I felt is a good composition showing the rocks of Bandon with some decent contrasts.
There wasn't a lot of photoshop here.

Single photo:
>Opened in Raw and slight increase in exposure
>Opened in CS-5 as a 16 Bit Tiff
>Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0
>Bi-Color User Defined Filter
>Pro Contrast-Lower Opacity to taste
>Adjustment Layer-Curves-add slight additional contrast
>Noise Ninja-decrease noise in sky
>Cropped, sized and Framed for posting

Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

What a great place to shoot. Very popular spot in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon. Of course I am there with all the giddy up stuff, Camera, tripod, shutter release, ND Filter. I got it working, but yes I am also surrounded by every camera small and large, Cell phones. You name it, it is being shot around me. I find it a lot of fun and all are very nice. So this is just an enjoyable and maybe a bit humous spot. I was just one of the minions shooting a very popular place.
BUT I GOT MINE!!

You can see someone standing on the bridge which gives you a good idea of scale and size.